


The English Vice

by terebi_me



Series: The Experiment [2]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Caning, M/M, Mild S&M, Power Play
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-24
Updated: 2012-12-24
Packaged: 2017-11-22 07:23:52
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,428
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/607292
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/terebi_me/pseuds/terebi_me
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Long-buried secrets, modern music, and a headmaster's cane - Sherlock doesn't pretend that he's not difficult, but he really does test John's limits sometimes. John's POV. Spoilers through The Great Game. Part 2 of The Experiment series.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The English Vice

_It's not a matter of old-school self-discipline: it’s a matter of abandoning yourself to the music and letting it dictate your responses._  
\-- Amanda Kiehl/Michael Jo, http://thousandfoldecho.com/2012/01/12/mahlergate/

An hour ago they'd been in the City of London Metropolitan Police station office, John sat in a chair getting his breath back and Sherlock striding back and forth, coat aswirl, narrating the facts of the case they'd just solved, informing a smirking Sergeant Donovan where they could find the perpetrator lying in a damp alley with both of his legs broken from a three-story fall, and Lestrade's mouth compressed in a thin line because the perpetrator was a fellow police inspector with a string of very bad debts to some very bad Bosnian pimps. Sitting restlessly, John had watched Sherlock declaim, unable to take his eyes off the consulting detective, feeling very strange, sharp stirrings in his groin, in his thighs, in his chest; and when Sherlock's cold clear flashing eyes caught his gaze, it was like being struck by lightning.

The terrifying _want_ in them. The _claim_. _You're mine_ , that look said, and John Watson knows in his heart that it's true.

He's never been captured like this before; never been locked. Not just love or devotion—a strange kind of ownership. He belongs to Sherlock, but Sherlock doesn’t belong to him, not in the same way. He would kill for Sherlock; already had. A part of him believes that Sherlock would kill for him as well, but another part of him understands that it wouldn't be the same. Sherlock doesn't really care for human lives; he only cares whether or not he wins, whether or not that he can prove that he's right. And yet Sherlock looks at him that way—that odd, burning, unselfconscious way, letting John know that he's different, that Sherlock esteems him above all men, all humans, every other living thing.

His place is at Sherlock’s side.

And now, they are back home at 221b, John slumped and scrabbling at the slick leather surface of the sofa, not quite on his knees, with Sherlock shoved balls-deep up his arsehole. John hadn't been asked. There had been no civilized and gentle conversation beforehand; no "Shall we make love?", no "I want to be inside you this time," not even a "I want you and I shall have you," even in the taxi home. Not that Sherlock had ever been much for that kind of pillow talk, but still — to walk in off the street, Sherlock close behind him up the stairs, grabbing John's buttocks through his jeans, trapping him against the door to the flat and unzipping him, reaching down the back of his underpants, hot fingertips pointing themselves towards John's center. John had barely been able to unlock the door, nearly falling inside once the door gave way. Then Sherlock had just stepped over him, rushing into the flat, tossing his own coat at a chair.

He had returned before John regained his balance, pushed John at the sofa, yanked down jeans and pants with one hand, parted John's arse cheeks, positioned his mouth at the appropriate inappropriate spot, and began without hesitation to spit and lick and massage with lips and tongue and mouth. When John tried to reach back—to what end, he wasn't sure, just to touch Sherlock and make sure that he was real—Sherlock seized his wrist and pulled John's arm behind his back. "Be still," Sherlock growled, and went back to his messy tongue-bath. So John was still, as still as he could be considering that Sherlock was doing an admirable job of shoving his tongue actually inside John. It all happened so fast. Oh, if only there had been time and opportunity to enjoy it, to savor it; the feeling was literally unbearably exquisite.

And before John could even catch his breath to comment—he still had his coat on, for fuck's sake—there were deep-questing fingers inside him, and cool lubricant, and Sherlock wiping his face on John's buttocks. "Disgusting," Sherlock grumbled, and prodded his cock inside.

"Stop, stop, stop!" John had yelled, breathy and desperate. "You don't know what you're doing!"

Sherlock paused where he was. "I do know," he said, "and I'm going to."

"Dammit—this doesn't work—this position—"

"Yes," Sherlock had conceded, "you're right. I can't get in properly deep in your arse this way."

And thus, over an arm of the sofa, John's bum in the air, Sherlock standing behind him and holding John's hips in position, John standing on tiptoes, biting his lip and listening to the wet, slurping noises of the two of them shagging in the front room, bathed in the bright light from the kitchen.

Fumbling, John tries to undress himself the rest of the way, but only makes it as far as his jacket; his shirt is trapped underneath him, and he can't tug it free, and Sherlock does not stop, even for a moment. Sherlock's still mostly dressed as well; John can feel the rough silk of shirttails against the small of his back where his own shirt has been shoved up and out of the way, the confusion of trousers around their ankles. Sherlock pumps his hips regularly, smoothly, varying occasionally in speed from a worryingly fast stabbing to slower, deeper, languorous strokes. Feels too good, too right. John has tried to keep his groans and cries to a minimum, but Sherlock leans over him, slides his long arms around John's torso, and hugs him for a moment, the gesture unmistakable, and that makes John moan long, low, and loud. "Oh, God, please kiss me," he begs, reaching behind himself, grasping Sherlock's bony hip.

Sherlock straightens up, and resumes thrusting at a good pace. "This is better."

"You've never—we've never—" John babbles, and lets his hand fall away, grabbing the arm of the sofa instead, only belatedly realizing that he could have been touching himself all this time.

"Irrelevant," Sherlock mutters shakily. "We are doing it now, and you are loving it absolutely, as I thought you might. Loving it. Absolutely." He pushes John's head down with one hand, and tilts his hips with the other, the better to match his now-vertical thrusts.

"Yes—oh, God—you are too—" It's too much; it almost hurts for John to touch himself. He's too full up and too hard and too much everything. He lets his cock go and quivers as it bounces up rigid and straining, the slippery tip brushing against the side of the sofa; they'd have to clean that up, it'd be neater if he were on his back . . . Later. Nothing matters right now but the repetitive pressure, the obscene sounds, being so very taken by this horrible, vexing creature. He does love it; he does; absolutely.

"Fuck yourself on me," Sherlock says, holding John's hips, falling still himself; John arches up as best he can, but it's not quite what he hopes. All the same, it seems to work, that and a bit of flexing the muscles inside him, and moaning at the senseless pleasure of it. Feels too right. Sherlock shudders along the full length of his body, his hands spreading John even wider, trying to thrust into him against John's own gentle internal resistance. "Yes. Oh. John," Sherlock says, "oh—John—" His voice dissolves into a series of bestial grunts and moans, his hips sliding until his cock is lodged all the way deep inside, locking there, and one hand encircling John's throat. He applies no pressure, but John claws the hand away from his throat; that is not in his personal repertoire.

"Come on, you bastard," John rasps, his own cock retreating slightly from its own raging erection. Being choked, or even pretending to be, is one of his anti-turn-ons. Still, the feeling of Sherlock's cock twitching inside him, the warmth and wetness of Sherlock's sweat against his thighs and buttocks, the sound of Sherlock's helpless vocalizations keep him at least somewhat in the moment. They are fucking, after all, and the novelty alone it is worth something. Sherlock all but threw John down and sodomized him, and yes, John loved it absolutely. Needed it more than he’d known. "That's it. Come on, then." He shudders despite himself, wondering how he can hate and love Sherlock so much at the same time, wondering if it's really any different from how he always feels.

"So _wet_. . . ahhh, so deep inside you," Sherlock whispers, his cock jumping inside John one more time, the head of it lost somewhere past John's aching prostate. It wants a touch, just one good touch . . . but somehow it means just as much that Sherlock got off so hard. Cold, weird Sherlock, transformed into a moaning, sweaty mess. God, _that's_ good.

"Yes, all the way," John murmurs soothingly. "There, yes, that's it." If they were facing each other, John would kiss Sherlock comfortingly on the mouth and eyebrows, and breathe his exhalations; it'd be beautiful and exquisitely tender, and he could pretend that they were in love, for what else would it feel like, if not that? Instead, John touches his own cock gingerly, wondering if he should stroke it back to life, or let it subside and accept that the sex is over now that Sherlock has come. He knows his way around this dilemma with a female partner; sex isn't over until she decides it is. But with Sherlock . . . who the fuck knows?

Sherlock withdraws, finally, and John sighs, unsure of what happens next, thrilled a bit by the smooth friction inside of him; he wouldn't mind a little bit more of that. He can bring himself off that way, if he doesn't waste time . . . maybe fingers inside himself . . .

To John's surprise, Sherlock squeals in mingled delight and horror, and John makes a face as he feels viscous fluid dripping down his perineum, heading ticklish for his balls. He must look a mess. Sherlock moans, "Disgusting," and sticks two fingers back into John's anus.

"You did it," John grumbles. _More, more_ , he pleaded silently. _More of that_.

"Yes . . .  yes, I did," Sherlock muses, sounding somewhat amazed. Somehow his fingers magically avoid John's prostate, even though it feels to John that it's the size of a melon, swollen to bursting with fluid and frustration; but he's so open, fucked so wide, that Sherlock doesn't even touch it. He could practically get his whole hand inside if he wanted . . . but he doesn't seem to. Fired up with lust and excitement, John loses his patience.

"You know what? I'm not done yet," he snaps.

“Hmm?” Sherlock murmurs, sounding dazed. He takes his fingers back.

"I said . . .  what do you think I mean? Dammit, Sherlock, did you do that just for you, or for the two of us?" Now that he can move, he stands up, pulls his shirt off, bends down and slips off his shoes, and pulls his jeans away completely, using his pants to give himself a hasty wipe. Sherlock, wearing only his cerulean silk shirt and black socks, leans against the wall, cheeks flushed, eyes glazed. He looks well fucked, anyway.

"For me," Sherlock admits guilelessly. "Was excited. Better than a wank. No point in wanking when you’re there." He spreads a handkerchief over the seat of a chair and slumps down, his spent and reddened cock only just beginning to soften. Sherlock's penis is long and slender with a bulbous head, its very end as pointed and keen as his fingertips, like a probe; John can still feel it inside him, trying to find the best path to his insides, bending John like a pipe cleaner until he fit, uncompromising in his goal to fuck John as deeply as he could. Sherlock wears a terribly smug smile. "I wanted to see if it was possible make you drip."

“You used me,” John accuses.

Sherlock's smile turns dreamy, tucking his chin into his shoulder in a brief self-hug, and nods. "And you liked it."

John sighs and shakes his head. No real point in protesting. It's true. He'd wanted it for a long time—not just Sherlock inside him, but being seized, being overwhelmed and overruled, being wanted like that. Still, though, knowing that John's needs had never even crossed Sherlock's mind is more than John can simply accept.

He has never backed down from standing up for himself. The only thing that really makes this experience okay, something that John can live with (because it's hard enough just living with Sherlock), is if he tries to attain something like equity.

"Well, I'm not done yet," John says again, standing up utterly straight and fearless, narrowing his eyes at the cheerfully post-coital Sherlock. "I'm going to have a quick wash, and then I would appreciate it if you would be in _my_ bed for _my_ use."

" _Your_ use," Sherlock echoes, sighing faintly. His ordinarily pallid cheeks are bright pink, the color spreading to envelop his forehead and chin, caught in a sudden violent blush. Under John's astonished gaze, he reaches down, takes his softening cock in hand, and gently strokes its underside with his thumb. "You intend to use me, is that it?"

"The way you just used me," John agrees, trying to remain stern.

“All right,” Sherlock murmurs. “But it won’t be the same. You’ve just asked me.”

“I’ve _told_ you. That’s different.”

Sherlock grins lazily, stroking himself. “As you say.”

"Thought you didn't wank with me around," John mutters.

"Not wanking." Sherlock yawns, fingers curled around the shaft of his cock. "I'm thinking."

Frowning, too annoyed to speak further, John heads to the bathroom. He’s all wet and cold down his thighs now; it doesn’t feel the least bit sexy. His erection has subsided, but he still feels agonizingly tense and achy; the legendary “blue balls,” not at all helped by the new aching in his guts from being fucked too deep and too soon. He’s not injured, but he really wants to get this over with so he can relax in bed. He almost regrets confronting Sherlock over his selfishness. Wouldn't it be quicker for John to just have a wank and go to sleep? Why does he let Sherlock do this to him?

Momentarily, Sherlock gets up and follows John. John sighs again, wetting a hand towel in the sink. He very much wants to punch his flatmate, preferably in the stomach, so he can see how it feels. "What—d'you want to watch?" John says archly.

"I want to . . . help," Sherlock mumbles. He is almost pouting, his cheeks (and his mouth) still red. It's a gorgeous sight, and John's cock, and his heart, jump again. Such an odd dance, this, but the only thing to do is to stay the course, to go with the flow, be open-minded, good, giving, generous . . . or was it "game"? He can never remember. Savage Love had been a hugely popular sex column amongst the American troops with which John had served, and he had looked forward to it every week himself. He's supposed to be three "G" things but there are always more than three he can think of.

Sherlock and his beautiful mouth.

"Yeah?" John replies, his tone more gentle, and hands Sherlock the towel. He unbuttons Sherlock's shirt, which the detective seems to have forgotten that he's wearing, and Sherlock awkwardly wraps an arm around John to rub the damp towel uncertainly against his backside. "All right, we can do this together. But do what I tell you or fuck off."

Sherlock smiles crookedly. "Do you still want that kiss?"

"Yes, but wash your face first."

Sherlock obediently turns aside, fills his free hand with water from the tap, and rubs it over his face, slurping directly from the tap, rinsing his mouth. "Now, wipe me down well," John directs, arching his eyebrows at Sherlock as if to ask, What's taking you so long? Sherlock blushes again, rinses the towel, and carefully wipes away all the lube and saliva and the still-leaking semen from his buttocks and inner thighs. Opening his legs a little to provide access, John would give anything, anything for Sherlock to stick his fingers in again and circle his prostate, but—not now. He’s got to maintain control or he’ll get off hard and Sherlock will just leave. And who knows when John will get another chance to experience . . . this. Sherlock and his beautiful, naked body, so close, still hot from shagging, a bit pungent from sweat.

John holds his face up, mouth open, and exactly as John wants him to, Sherlock slides his tongue inside and seals their lips together. They inhale simultaneously, sucking against vacuum, and their bare bellies make contact. Instantly, John’s erection returns, and the aching inside him gets worse.

When Sherlock reaches for John's cock, though, John bats his hand aside and breaks the kiss. "No, not here," John says. "In bed." He's lightheaded, though reluctant to admit it; it could be from the night's excitement, or the fact that most of the rest of the blood in his body is trapped in his sex organs. He needs to lie down for a bit.

Again, Sherlock follows, to John's bedroom this time. John is pleasantly surprised that Sherlock hasn't yet lost interest; most men would already be on to the next thing, but Sherlock still stares, remaining close by with a look on his face that might be troubled or fascinated. John lies on his bed with a sigh of relief, some of the tension draining from his limbs. Sherlock settles next to him, lying on his side, his head level with John's chest. "How will you use me?" Sherlock asks, holding his hand above John's chest just close enough so that the hairs stand up and quiver, but not close enough to make skin contact. "You're just . . . lying there like a sack of flour."

"I want you to touch me," John says, grabbing the hand and pulling it down onto him, "and do as I tell you. Let me direct you."

"Why don't you just tell me what you want?" Sherlock blinks. He doesn't seem to be kidding.

"I'm going to," John assures him. "As you do it. Surely you understand how this works."

Sherlock sighs, put-upon. "Surely fellatio would be more efficient."

"I'm not interested in efficiency right now; I'm interested in you doing as I say for a bloody change. We are not in a hurry." John's voice comes out sharp, and Sherlock raises his eyebrows in muted surprise.

"Yes, John," he says quietly.

It's John's turn to sigh, but he adds a soft laugh and strokes the back of Sherlock's hand. "That's better. Now. Rub my nipples, and kiss my chest a bit. Be slow about it. Let me feel your breath."

Sherlock does well with these instructions, his touch firm and skilled, and his dry, brief kiss at just the edge of John’s nipple is ticklishly exquisite. “Kiss my lips,” John says, and Sherlock mirrors the kiss, tiny and dry, against John’s mouth. “Now, touch my chest with both hands,” John smiles, “and kiss me more deeply on the mouth. Use your tongue. But not too much; a wet kiss, but not a sloppy one. Don’t eat me. Let me taste you.”

“Yes, John,” Sherlock whispers. He thumbs the hard dots of John's nipples. “And you will taste yourself . . . taste what I tasted.”

John winces a bit—he hadn’t thought of that—but he can’t really taste anything strange or untoward on Sherlock's palate. Sherlock tastes like water and chemicals and just a very faint trace of salt, as if from sweat; a nice taste, a strange-but-very-right male taste. John kisses back hungrily, lightly chewing Sherlock's lips, his fingers clawing through Sherlock’s hair as if necessary to keep him near. But it’s not. Though Sherlock breaks away from the kiss, breathing heavily, eyes closed, seeming somewhat overwhelmed, he remains so close his nose brushes John's.

“Thank you,” John says. “I know you don’t like kissing.”

“No,” Sherlock replies, but in good humor. “I don’t. It is a filthy practice. I would much rather engage in rimming; it is no more of a disease vector than your mouth.”

John just blinks at him for a moment. “Shut up,” he says. Sherlock just grins and crinkles the corners of his eyes. “No; I have an even better idea. I want you to tell me a secret about yourself. It doesn’t need to be something you’ve never told anyone, but it must be something sexual. And while you do so, I want you to stroke me with your hands and your mouth until I reach orgasm. See if you can match the length of the story to—”

“Of course I can,” Sherlock cuts him off. John sighs, imagining that Sherlock will match a ten-word confession to a fast and rough jerk-off, so that he can get back to . . . whatever it is that he would clearly rather be doing than making love to John for ten bloody minutes.

But it isn’t a quick-and-dirty at all. Well, not quick, anyway.

"Once, I was a young man," Sherlock begins.

"Oh, that's a good one," John replies, sarcastically, too quickly.

Sherlock blinks calmly at him, takes John's hardening penis in his fingers, and slowly licks up the side of the shaft. Surprised, John hisses breath between his teeth. "Once, _when I was much younger than I am now_ , when I was at university. Sidney Sussex."

"Oh, shocker," John drawls under his breath at the mention of the ancient Cambridge college.

"Now you shut up, or you get nothing." Sherlock squeezes John's cock just hard enough for John to shut tight both his eyes and his lips. "When I was in my first year at Sidney, I received an invitation to attend a very exclusive gathering given by a very exclusive group. A play party, given by and for some of the most wealthy, landed, elite students. And faculty. And staff. And prominent local citizens."

"Scandalous," John murmurs.

"Your subconscious resistance is noted," Sherlock points out, and lightly rubs the tip of John's cock against his tongue—specifically not the other way round. It makes John shiver. "It may surprise you to know that I accepted the invitation, and attended the party. I attended for the express purpose of watching people have sexual relations with each other, including but not limited to intercourse. I had little interest in engaging in such a thing myself, and even less interest once I had seen it done a few times, but the details of it fascinated me, and I watched everything that went on with great interest without participating, or introducing myself, or responding to overtures to conversation. Naturally, this generated more interest than if I had just walked in and immediately began furiously masturbating." Sherlock pauses and narrows his eyes at John; when John laughs at the joke, the stare becomes a smile. "Thus I was invited to the next gathering, and the next; I accepted each time, and sat and watched everything, and spoke to no one, and allowed no one to touch or converse with me. I expected the invitations to the events to be rescinded, but they never were, and soon I was attending two or three play parties a week."

"Wow," John breathes. "Weren't you ever aroused?"

"Not in the slightest," Sherlock replies. "As you know, I have a substantial level of control over my body's supposedly involuntary functions and reactions. But participating honestly did not interest me, and certainly not in that situation. On the other hand, I found that I did derive enjoyment from being above the grunting, sweating fray, merely stood back and watching as if I were at a museum, or observing robots build cars on an assembly line. I felt less and less connection to humanity or to sexuality the more I watched, and thus I treasured those evenings. I was merely a lock box of experiences, a lock box to which I had no access, myself. It was glorious to be so pure." Sherlock rubs John's cock against the wet, warm elastic of the inside of his cheek, not sucking or tonguing; it's pure gentle texture, and John tightly curls his fingers into his bedclothes. "They called me the Mad Monk."

"Oh, that's nice," John whispers, and it works on multiple levels. He feels Sherlock smile against his cock.

The detective holds up a warning finger. "The story doesn't end there." The fingers go into his mouth, and then back onto John's cock, cool-wet and insistent. John bites his lip and listens closely. "There was one night—one very fateful night—when some newly minted dominatrix got a bit too enthusiastic on her backswing as she prepared to cane some poor girl lashed to the St. Andrew's cross, and she caught me a good, sharp blow on the side of my thigh." Sherlock falls silent, slowly shaking his head, and John opens his eyes to see a very thoughtful, almost melancholy expression on Sherlock's face. "It was quite extraordinary. I felt utterly transformed. Everything around me receded; and I appeared, or that part of me that had been struck. It was as if no part of my body had ever been real before. I caught the domme's wrist before she could strike another blow on the girl on the cross, and said to her, 'Hit me. With that. On my bum.'"

John laughs freely. "Oh, Sherlock, you take the cake, don't you? I assume she did."

"I reached orgasm on the third stroke."

"Ohhh," murmurs John. He is, again, so close, and probably nothing can stop it happening now. He has the orgasm squarely in the cross-hairs, as securely captured as his cock in Sherlock's hand, dipping occasionally back into Sherlock's mouth, only to emerge with its tip stranded with saliva and cloudy pre-come. "Yes, I can imagine . . ."

"And I remembered, all at once—one of my first deleted memories came crashing back onto my hard drive, reinstalled and upgraded—that Mycroft used to thrash me with my grandfather's cane when we were children. It wasn't at random; he was Mummy's enforcer. If she was cross with me, rather than mete out the punishment herself, she would send Mycroft to do it, as he was so enthusiastic and obedient and always toadying, trying to become Mummy's favorite even if he knew good and well that I am her favorite." Sherlock jerks harder on John's cock, almost too hard, but not quite; not quite enough not to be amazing and wonderful and just what John needs to nudge him closer to fulfillment. "I caught sight of Mummy watching, watching Mycroft thrash me to bits in the drawing room, and she was smiling. I was horrified, sickened by this flagrant injustice, but before I could run to grab my traveling case and run away to Morocco as I had always planned to do, she caught me crying in the hall and gave me a long hug and a dozen kisses, and heaps of marvelous sympathy. An ice pack for my arse and ice cream for my face. Mycroft got none and he was furious, and pinched me black and blue under the table at tea. God, I hated summer holiday." Sherlock sighs, and John bites his lower lip, holding back as hard as he can, not wanting to finish before Sherlock completes his confession. "But—no matter how cruel he was, no matter how much he hurt me, she never, ever told him to stop. Or made him apologize. Or made me apologize for whatever I'd done. As if the punishment alone were enough to absolve me. After a while, I began to crave it. It was the only time I got ice cream, and I loved knowing that I got some and that fat, arse-kissing bully got none. So, after some weeks of plotting to drive him insane, I baited him into thrashing me without first having been ordered to do so. _Once_. Mummy quickly sussed out what had happened, and from that point on, the canings ended. Came to a halt. At that point, our war became, and remains, entirely psychological."

John's head is swimming; he feels like he's been dissolving for ten minutes straight, but without the kick to let him know that he's come. And he knows this one will be significant. He's almost dreading it. "So . . ."

"Caning is a sexual signal for me. It is one of the very, very few. I feel that I can trust you to perform that for me. You expressed interest in it yourself; that indeed is what brought the idea to mind."

So close . . . it's going to be agonizing . . . John is dizzy. "So you . . . want me t-to role-play Mycroft?"

"Oh, God, no. That would be disgusting. You are almost completely unlike Mycroft in every single way; that's what makes it sexual. But the sensation, and the comfort afterward . . . "

"I-I'm surprised y-you didn't 'delete' all that."

"I tried, but apparently, it's important. It's something about me. What I would like you to do is overwrite the data, so that it means 'this' and not 'that'. Aren't you going to come, John? You really ought to; your leg has been shaking for ages."

"Ah—ah—I am! Oh, God!" John groans. "That. Yes. Oh, yes, oh, God, that. Yes. Ahhh!" A wrenching spasm, a sharp spike up, lightning uncoiling in his spine. John arches up on the bed.

"There. Better?" Sherlock's hand stops immediately, and while John's eyes are closed, he can hear Sherlock sucking his fingers clean. John groans wordlessly, one hand clenched in the bedclothes, the other in Sherlock's hair, undone for the moment.

John asks, struggling to recover, "So. . . let me get this straight . . . you want me to cane you?" His cock's still half-hard, and he pets it gently, trying to comfort himself down, but the blood remains stubbornly, achingly in place.

"Yes," Sherlock replies.

"When?—Right now?"

"Of course not," Sherlock scoffs, springing up from the bed, his keen face already pointed in another direction; he is clearly done with sex right now. His voice is crisp. The intimacy is over. "You'll know when."

"How?" John groans, jerking himself in earnest. Another orgasm curls in his guts; he doesn't know how or from where, but he has to come again, and it doesn't matter if Sherlock is there. It's become purely biological, but of course, never merely that; he stares hungrily at the plump, twitching curves of Sherlock's buttocks as he walks to the door. "Are you going to tell me?"

"You'll know," Sherlock reiterates, "when it's time."

He disappears into the hall, and John makes no attempt to stifle or soften his second orgasmic cry. This one hurts, deliciously, and his issue is as clear as spit, but at last, he's done. Back to baseline. Not satisfied, but content for now. He can lock all this away for future reference, and take a shower and wash all this lust away from him.

In a moment, anyway; Sherlock has already beaten him into the shower, and something tells John that he won't want company under the water. John sighs. He'll wait. He'll know when.  
\+ + + +  
In the weeks that follow, John applies himself to learning about consensual caning. He furtively thumbs through some books at a shop, but doesn't allow himself more than a basic skim; wouldn't do to be seen lurking too long in the adult section. Knowing the internet is a vast cache of information about anything and everything of a sexual nature, he examines a few websites when he has a moment alone. There doesn’t seem to be much to know; some vaguely comprehensible stuff about “safe and sane”, aftercare, and a surprising lot of very submissive women. He follows some links in an attempt to pick up some technique, but as he's watching a video demonstrating the right grip and swing on the instrument, Mrs Hudson bustles into the flat with milk and the mail, and he has to slam his laptop shut. She shows no signs that she knew what he was up to, but before she leaves the flat again she widens her eyes at him a little, as if to say, _Oo-er, get you_. Puts John right off the idea.

Nothing that he sees or reads really turns him on, beyond the jolt of instinctive pleasure viewing a pair of bared, shapely buttocks; the red marks on them just say _injury, inflammation, hematoma_  to him. Naturally, he understands the dynamics behind power exchange. They tell him nothing about himself, beyond further muddling his understanding of the nature of his relationship with Sherlock—for they truly are in a relationship now. Partners, lovers, friends, flatmates, a system of two, with John as the ground and Sherlock as the spark. But he is not subbing for Sherlock, and doesn’t want to be, even if he is the one who does the grocery shop, the one who consents, the one who follows. It's much more complicated than the clearly demarcated line between master and slave, the carer and the cared-for. If he canes Sherlock, it'll be as a favor, not because it's something that John needs. All John needs is an interaction, a way to get closer, a way to give Sherlock something that he needs so much that he'll _ask_  for it.

During those weeks, Sherlock makes no indications of interest in anything sexual. He spends his hours instead writing an extended scientific theory on honeybee Colony Collapse, then staying up literally all hours arguing with scientists around the world on instant-messenger, email, and message boards. Lestrade and the police staff at Metro send him no cases that he can't solve in less than thirty minutes with a minimum of effort or information, and he ignores all offers of cases from the outside world. Talking mostly to himself, he barely speaks to John except to demand more tea, and one morning John gets up to see that Sherlock has pissed into an empty specimen jar rather than go to the toilet, so focused on his laptop screen that he has chewed his lower lip bloody and his face is streaked with salt from his watering eyes, fingers flying over the keyboard. When John gets back from work Sherlock has acquired a second laptop, and sits before them both, his hands flying back and forth between the two. The piss-jar, full to the brim and capped, now has two companions.

John spends as much time as he can outside the flat. With no cases coming in, money gets scarce. He picks up work shifts wherever he can, all hours, all days; when he's not at work, he spends some time with Mike Stamford and his family, or walks around London, or sits at Speedy's with a coffee and a newspaper, but his mind is always at 221b, his phone always fully charged and in his pocket, but aggravatingly silent. John starts feeling desperate for a case himself, and wonders why the hell Sherlock would come to such an abrupt halt of his life’s work.

One afternoon, his body missing the warm cliffs and plains of Sherlock's body, John sends Sherlock an impatient text : **I'm a honeybee widower.**  Of course, he gets no reply. That's not how it works, and he knows it. He sighs and goes back to his shift at A & E, setting broken bones, tweezing glass from a broken sliding door from a child's arm, prepping for emergency appendectomies. He can do it in his sleep. He _feels_ nearly asleep. The world is gray and irritating. He asks out a woman he knows, takes her to the cinema to see a thriller, goes back to her place, goes down on her until she thrashingly comes, then begs off home. She is ecstatic enough not to protest. At the last minute he decides that he doesn’t want to fuck her, only please her, maybe to make up for all those slave women he read about and the pain and deprivation they have to go through to please their stern masters. Besides, Sherlock hates it so much when John comes home stinking of fanny with that silly smile of “I’ve just had sex” on his face, and he invariably points out that John doesn’t really care about those women, only unloading unwanted sexual tension and fluids in a socially acceptable way. John can’t ever seem to explain that not only does he have perfectly natural sexual urges, he certainly isn’t going to be able to have them satisfied by the twice a year that seems to be enough for Sherlock. Sherlock forgets all about sex most of the time, and when he wants it from John, he just takes it, knowing John won’t refuse him. It is maddening. John hates him for it.

_I am not Sherlock’s slave, damn it. He needs me more than I need him._

When he gets home after that date, Sherlock is gone out, the front room neatly tidied, the piss-jars gone without a trace. It even smells nice in there for the first time that month. John grimaces at the thought of Mrs Hudson clearing up after Sherlock and then putting out some potpourri. He makes a cup of herbal tea, washes the taste of vaginal juices from his mouth, sits dull and purposeless. Sherlock never texted back. Wherever he's gone, whatever he's doing, it doesn't include John.

He goes to bed, curls up with a pillow, stares at the wall. His leg aches. _This won't do_ , he thinks, and falls asleep.

\+ + + + +

In the morning John comes downstairs in pajamas and dressing gown, muzzy-headed and caring about nothing but tea. Sherlock sits at the kitchen table with a pile of newspapers, already dressed in his basic black suit and purple pinstripe bespoke shirt. His hair has been brushed into smooth, dark, side-parted swoops. His handsomeness is offensive this early in the morning. "Tea?" John mumbles.

"In the pot, still hot," Sherlock says. He sounds bright but relaxed, and his eyes are shining. John grunts affirmatively, sits, pours, milks, sips. Sherlock watches, waiting, smiling a bit wildly. “Toast, as well.”

There is indeed toast, already buttered, though it’s grown cold. "What have you done?" John finally asks, frowning.

"Tickets," Sherlock says. "Kronos Quartet. Playing Philip Glass. At the Barbican. Tonight."

"All I got out of that was 'tickets, Barbican, tonight'," John remarks, slurping his tea. It is bitingly strong, the way Sherlock likes it, but good; no weird twigs or lichens in it to "infuse it with probiotics," a strange term that generally means “make it taste like shit.”

"The Kronos Quartet, John. Only the most famous and successful new music ensemble in the world; I should have thought even you would have heard of them. And you've never heard of Philip Glass no of course you haven't." Sherlock looks delightedly outraged. "In that case, it is now an imperative that you accompany me to the performance. It is time for your horizons to be broadened."

"Sorry," John responds sheepishly. "I'm much more of a Massive Attack sort of bloke."

"Precisely my point. You merely have a sentimental attachment to that rubbish. Philip Glass composes some of the most purely transcendent and mathematically perfect music ever created. Is your dark-brown jacket in a wearable state? It's not too late to take it to the cleaners', if not. You needn't wear a tie, but please do not wear jeans."

"This sounds very educational," John mutters. "The jacket is clean, and you know it is; you saw it in my closet the other day. Trousers, too. It's not as though I have much cause to wear a suit right now."

"Why should you bother, when you can slump through life looking like a transient and nobody cares?" Sherlock rises from the table and all but flutters around the kitchen, spots of colour high on his cheeks. "I acquired the tickets last evening in a wager; I defeated a Ukranian twenty pounds above my weight class in only two rounds. He never even touched me."

"You beat up a guy to get tickets to a show?"

"I didn't beat him up," Sherlock says, offended. "I let him get tired, and then I silenced him with an effective uppercut. The 'rope-a-dope', as it is known, famously employed by Muhammad Ali during the Rumble in the Jungle. And I won them. He laid me a wager. It was a matter of honor. Besides, the man was trying to scalp the tickets for two hundred quid apiece, which is simply offensive."

John shakes his head, and laughs despite himself. "Rope-a-dope. Right, then," he concedes. "So what does this band sound like?"

"Well, they are a string quartet; you can imagine."

John munches toast and nods. "So it’s classical."

"No; modern music. Quite different. A very different feel. But based on many of the same contrapuntal systems." Sherlock can clearly see that John's eyes have glazed over again. "Oh, fine, I'll demonstrate. No, don't get up; the thin air five feet above the ground might suffocate you." The detective flashes into the front room and back, wielding his laptop, fiddling with it as he walks. "This is one of the pieces they may well play tonight."

From Sherlock's computer comes a low hum of cellos, matched with a layer of repetitive—very repetitive—violins, eking out something that approaches melody, but then keeps backing away from it, back into the exact same notes again, never really going anywhere. Almost instantly, it gives John a headache. He glances dubiously at Sherlock, who gazes into the middle distance, seemingly transported by this ugly, soulless, aggravatingly boring music.

"Very interesting," John murmurs.

Sherlock grins, not unkindly. "You're lying."

"I just . . ." John shrugs and gulps more tea, trying to find the nicest way to say what he thinks. "I find it . . . mechanical? A bit repetitive, isn't it?" Sherlock nods at him encouragingly. "Sterile."

“Precisely,” Sherlock replies in satisfaction. “Such mathematics, so pure.”

"There aren’t any feelings in it," John claims. So, yeah, perfect for Sherlock, really, the man who thinks Amy Winehouse sings like the death-wheezes of a cart horse.

Sherlock just patiently smiles. "Are you coming, or will I have to attend on my own?"

"Yeah, I'll go," John says slowly, "but I might want a drink first."

"You can get a drink there. Right, then; I'm off. Meet me back here at seven."

"You're off? Where?" John asks in surprise. Sherlock hadn't left the flat in nine days, and now he’s gone twice in twelve hours.

"Royal Entomological Society," Sherlock replies. He rubs his hands together, chuckling with a nasty sort of satisfaction. "I am going to see if I can knock out Sir Reginald Wilkes in less than two rounds; he challenged me to a duel. Whoever loses has to endorse the other man's paper, and I have no intention of endorsing that thick-headed, asthmatic millstone around the neck of pure science. I shall send him home to Herts with his stinger between his legs, mark my words."

"Don't get arrested," John calls after his flatmate, sighs, turns back to his tea. It tastes even better now; brighter somehow, infused with purpose. Or maybe . . . and John peeks into the teapot to see some kind of horrible slimy white mold clinging to the wet leaves of Ceylon . . . infused with probiotics.

John consults at Barts that day with Stamford and a couple of students on rounds; they discuss identification and treatment of gunshot wounds in an emergency situation, and he finds himself narrating a moment from his past that he'd thought he'd forgotten, or at least hoped to, when he had to try to save the life of a child who'd been in the line of fire and taken two rounds to the face. "Did you save her?" asks the smallest student, a hopeful-eyed young woman with a headscarf and an African name. John tightens his mouth and shakes his head. He falls silent and lags behind as they continue on their rounds, his head full of alternating gray static and memories of blood literally gushing over his hands; but at the end of the day, every single one of the students gives John his or her contact information, and when the tallest student declares that John should come lecture, the students all agree. It shakes John out of his thought spiral for a while, remembering that he still has good work to contribute in the world, Sherlock or no Sherlock. He doesn't need Sherlock . . . He steps outside the hospital, walking toward the tube station, brow furrowed. What the hell does Sherlock have to do with anything?

He smirks tightly and sighs. Sherlock has everything to do with everything for him. Best he accept that fact and not try to fight it; not a battle he could ever win. He checks the time and sees that he's got a while to grab a pie at the pub before he's due to meet his flatmate back home, before that bloody terrible concert. Maybe a whiskey and a pint as well as the pie.

Pleasantly unsteady on his feet, John arrives comfortably promptly at eight minutes to seven. Sherlock stands before the window, wearing his overcoat, feet planted wide, playing a tender, delicate air on his violin. John waits silently until Sherlock quivers the last vibrato note from the strings, then lightly claps his hands. "Getting a bit of real music in before tonight's performance?" John quips.

Sherlock wheels to face him, his face flushed and eyes so pale they look white. "Three drinks already, Watson?" he shoots back. "Such a brave soldier. Refuses to back down from a drawn pistol, but a bit of Philip Glass and jumps straight into the barrel. Don't forget to shave; I can't be seen with you looking that way." He bustles the instrument back into its case, and John smirks and heads to his room.

Showered and suited, John follows Sherlock some more; down into a taxi, following Sherlock's lead in not speaking during the ride, following him into the Barbican Hall and straight to their second-row seats, bypassing all the bars and cafés. John mentions, "Had a lovely pork and veg pie down at the Dove and Kite; quite full, might fall asleep." They are in the last two seats in the row, and John frowns again as Sherlock takes the innermost seat, right next to the wall. "These are our seats? They hardly seem worth beating someone up for, do they?"

"I only really require a good reason. Your silence is appreciated," Sherlock intones, staring straight ahead at the empty stage.

Amid enthusiastic applause, four ordinary-looking chaps come out onto the stage, settle with their instruments, and to John's scornful amusement, release the wand of a metronome to provide a steady rhythm. And all at once, they begin to play.  
     
Night and day, the difference between the music played live and the music heard from Sherlock's laptop's speakers, and contrasting even further with the way that Sherlock played. A violin in the room is like an additional human voice; a string quartet, miked and amplified through a concert hall, is like having every nerve ending in his body wired to receive a meaning previously unknown to him. At first, it is as painful as he'd feared, but not irritating; it's a pain as cleanly complicated as a pile of barbed wire. First he strains forward in his chair, as if getting closer to the stage will help him understand, but it isn't until he heaves a great breath he didn't know he was holding and relaxes back into his seat that the logic of the music slots perfectly into place. Now that he's heard it, he can't unhear it. It's like the magical moment when he first realized that he could swim; _of course, of course!_

At the end of the first number, John applauds, glancing over to see if Sherlock might actually share his enthusiasm. Instead, the detective slouches against the wall, holding his iPhone in his lap and rapidly tapping its screen with the padded "silent stylus" he'd invented. "Sherlock!" John whispers, dismayed. Sherlock only jerks his chin a bit, as if indicating the stage with his messy dark forelock-curl, and before John can say anything else, the quartet plays again, and he's once again caught up in the pleasure of an initial confusion followed by the bright spark of comprehension. This music is fun. And once he has the mechanics understood, he feels the melancholy of it, or nature's energy, or the pure childlike wonder of discovery.

It's great stuff, and there's Sherlock, texting and making faces, not sparing a single glance at the brilliant performance.

Impatiently, John elbows Sherlock, and angles his head, silently telling him to stop. Sherlock slaps John's arm—a good sharp one right on the funny bone—and returns to his flame war. John's concentration is shattered, and, ignoring the music as much as his flatmate is, sits silently fuming, arms crossed, for the rest of the concert.

As the applause begins to die down, John gets up immediately, losing himself in the scrum of audience members heading for the doors. By the time he makes it to the taxi rank, Sherlock, still texting, has caught up, and as usual a cab comes as if summoned by black magic. They get in and John can't cross his arms and frown any harder or he'll break something, preferably Sherlock's face. Sherlock chuckles softly at something on his phone screen, and taps at it some more.

"Look, would you put that fucking thing away?!" John snaps.

"Why are you shouting," Sherlock says mildly.

The string quartet hadn't been that loud, but John's ears are ringing anyway. "You knock out a Russian boxer for tickets—scalped tickets—to see those guys play and yet you can't even bother to pay the slightest attention! And you drag me down here! Molly's right; you do ruin everything, don't you?"

Sherlock calmly stares at him through narrowed eyes, the first time he’s actually looked at John in hours. and says, "Tonight." He swipes a finger across his phone to shut it down, slides it into the inner breast pocket of his coat.

"You never even—eh?"

Sherlock looks out the window at the streets rushing past and presses his lips together. "Tonight," he repeats. "Before you lose your temper."

"What makes you think I'm in the slightest bit interested in giving you something you want after that?"

"Because I'm smarter than you," Sherlock drawls. "I know things you couldn't possibly comprehend in a thousand years. And I know you, and I know I just gave you a gift that you will have for the rest of your life. And you keep going on about 'equity.'" The detective smiles out at the night. "You can thank me."

“Oh, I’ll thank you, all right,” John says under his breath, staring out the window on his side. “Til you bleed.” When he risks a glance at Sherlock, he sees that the detective wears an thoughtful, uncertain hint of a smile. John feels even worse now. This isn’t how it’s supposed to go; anger isn’t supposed to be a part of it. Trust Sherlock to wreck that, too, or at least misunderstand it. Or twist it to his own ends. John shakes his head and sighs; he’s being used again. His emotions, his reactions. Sherlock plays him like he plays the violin.

He considers just walking away when they reach Baker Street. Instead he gets out of the taxi and beats Sherlock to the door, if only to believe that he’s not the one following for a change.

In the front room of 221b, Sherlock sits down, opens his laptop, and casually gestures toward the mantel. The cane rests on top, suspended on a pair of baize-covered rests. Slim, golden in color, lightweight, with a crook on one end like an umbrella handle. John stares at it, his heartbeat quickening. “That wasn’t there this morning,” he grumbles.

Sherlock sneers as he types. “Like you’d notice. You make bats look observant.”

With that, John has had quite enough. If he doesn’t use that cane, he is going to punch Sherlock right in the face. He can only imagine how much the cane hurts; probably more, and much less obviously, than a broken nose. “Take your coat and jacket off,” he commands. “And your shoes. And bend over the sofa. Sharpish, or it’ll be bare-arsed.”

Sherlock arches his eyebrow and gives John a sulky glance, but he shuts the laptop, neatly hangs his coat on the hook, removes his shoes and socks, and bends forward over an arm of the sofa—the very same one he had John over. John’s heart is definitely hammering now, but the anger is cooling and solidifying in his belly, and his hips and thighs suddenly feel very hot.

Sherlock speaks, his voice February-cold and hard as handcuffs.

“Stop pretending I’m your boyfriend. Don’t even think it. That’s not what this is. This is entirely for my benefit; your fulfillment, your pleasure, is utterly irrelevant to me. It has rarely been otherwise. We are not ‘making love’. There isn’t any. I cannot and will not ever love you, John. View it as a disability if that comforts you. I am no more capable of loving you—as you understand it—than Stephen Hawking is capable of playing tennis.”

John wishes he could laugh, but Sherlock’s words curdle in his belly like poison. He desperately clutches an emotional antidote. “I’ve proved you wrong before,” he points out. And Sherlock’s lied before, too. Oh, so much, so many times. And John falls for it because he’s in love. And now he’s angry all over again.

“You listen, but you do not hear,” Sherlock mutters. “Typical.”

John reaches for the cane, hefts it in his hand, testing its weight. It’s heavier than he anticipated and he imagines, for a moment, the damage he could cause. Its thinness is not kind; it could cut on bare skin, but is still heavy enough to cause tremendous bruising. It has been well cared for; glossy with linseed oil, its handle slightly worn by the wielders’ hands. John lightly taps the length against his palm, just hard enough to understand, _Oh, yes, this is a weapon of punishment._

Sherlock drawls, “Go on, then. Do your worst.”

“I’m going to hurt you,” John frets. Sherlock only scoffs impatiently, and sticks his bum out a bit more. John smiles despite himself at Sherlock’s theatricality. “I’m a bit cross.”

“Only give me what you think I deserve,” Sherlock says.

John hesitates for a moment, and Sherlock heaves a big, aggrieved sigh. “Or, you could just be a coward.”

That triggers. Without even being conscious of the action, John lifts the cane and brings it down. The wood whistles, and strikes yielding flesh with a faint pop. Sherlock flinches, then hisses nastily, “Really? A tickle? You insult me. Not for the first time, mind you—”

John’s next strike slices air and lands square across the top of Sherlock’s protruding arse. _Smack_. Sherlock gasps mid-word, gulps, and falls silent. John tightens his mouth. His heart gives a heavy thud in his chest. “That shut you up, didn’t it?” he remarks.

“Better,” Sherlock croaks. “You’ll make Head Boy in no time.”

“I would,” John mutters, “if I was a posh git like _you_ —” He brings the cane down again smartly, deliberately adding the “snap” of the wrist at the end that he remembers from the website video, landing a few inches lower, where it curves. Sherlock winces and shudders all over; John can see the back of his neck is red in a furious blush. “Thinking you’re so much better than the rest of us—”

“I am,” Sherlock says through gritted teeth, “And you know it.”

“Shut it, perv,” John says. He gives it more shoulder than forearm this time, lands the edge of the cane at a diagonal, crossing his earlier strokes. A good, hard, solid hit. Sherlock yelps, then moans, bites his lip, keening softly, and John’s body responds, as always, to the sound of Sherlock in the grip of an involuntary reaction, his cock feeling heavy and itchy; he wants to take his trousers off, but not yet. He’s starting to enjoy this now. He carefully aims the next stroke to land right at the bottom curve, where buttock becomes upper thigh, and Sherlock cries out and all but melts against the couch, humping the arm.

“Please,” he gasps, his voice high and pinched, “oh, please—”

“Please what?” John drags the tip of the cane across the welts. He loves how Sherlock gasps desperately as he does that; and he loves even more that he can tell that Sherlock is trying not to. “Please forgive you? Is that what you want?”

“Nrrrrrgh—John—”

Another sharp, diagonal stroke produces a guttural moan. “Don’t fucking say my name,” John hisses. “You haven’t the right to even beg me. Its not like that between us, is it, Sherlock? Is it? You’ll never really feel it, will you? You can’t!”

Again. Again. Harder and with barely a second in between strokes. Sherlock jerks hard as they stripe his flesh, his bare toes clenched in the low carpet. John’s cock feels like the hard steel muzzle of a gun. He takes a deep breath, and strikes again. Another fine diagonal. Sherlock lets out a wordless shriek of pain, and collapses, slumped bonelessly over the arm of the sofa. Oh, he’s finished; John’s never seen it before and yet he knows. His own groin throbs heavily, and he lets his shoulders drop, his breath heaving as though he’s just run a mile. When John can finally hear over the pounding and ringing in his ears, he can hear Sherlock’s breath shuddering convulsively. As though he’s sobbing, but trying to control it. All at once, John’s compassion sweeps back into him like a tide; he sets the cane back onto the mantel, and spreads a gentle hand atop Sherlock’s hair. “All right,” he whispers. “You’re good.”

Muffled against his crossed arms, Sherlock issues a quiet command. “Quickly now, John. Remove my trousers. Fetch the lubricant. Penetrate me digitally; touch the welts as little as possible. I shall reach orgasm very soon—and then you may do as you like.” He cranes his neck slightly, pressing up against John’s hand in his hair like a cat wanting to be stroked, his hips arch against the sofa.

“In bed,” John breathes. “You remove your own trousers and go to your room. No more of this sofa-shagging. Lie down. I’ll be right there.” He actually helps Sherlock stand, and steadies him once he’s on his feet; the detective’s face is bright red and blotchy, eyelids red-rimmed, cheeks and forehead streaked with helpless tears. And his erection disrupts the clean line at the front of his trousers so much that it’s nearly comical. Sherlock Holmes is shaking and undone and lust is wetting his pants. It’s almost too great, and John knows he’ll remember this moment for the rest of his life.

Once Sherlock has uncertainly tottered away to his bedroom, John works quickly, fetching the ice packs from the freezer, scrubbing his hands, checking the first aid kit. In the bedroom, lit only by the swampy golden illumination of the antique hurricane lamp, Sherlock lies prone and naked on the bed, face pillowed on crossed arms, trembling, the marks on his ass marked out as if with a slutty hot-pink lipstick. Where the diagonal strikes landed, dots of blood have risen to the broken surface. John is shocked and moans in pain-sympathy; Sherlock moans, too, but hungrily. “Fuck me. Please. Do it now.”

John hurriedly sheds his clothes. He opens a sterile gauze bandage and lightly touches it to Sherlock’s bum to blot the blood; Sherlock hisses through his teeth. John sets the gauze aside and squirts a generous dollop of lubricant  onto his right hand, and with his left, pries apart Sherlock’s buttocks. Sherlock groans, though John isn’t touching the welts; John can feel how hot the skin is even nearby. He pokes gently, but quickly and firmly, inside the flexing ring of Sherlock’s anal muscles; his wrist brushes a welt, and Sherlock bites his pillow, whining softly. “Now, now; no whinging. Up on your knees,” John says. Sherlock squirms into position, hips raised off the bed, presenting his abused behind. “Gorgeous,” John whispers. “Yes, that’s right. Now relax. Let me get you off, love. You’ve done so well.”

John’s fingers slip deeper inside and arc for the prostate, hot and swollen, providing a firm, circular massage. “Ah, God!” Sherlock cries out. His long pale body convulses, jerking away from John’s fingers.

“There, there,” John moans, “there there, love.” Sherlock flings himself backward into John’s arms, shuddering, sobbing faintly. John catches him, holds him tight, his own eyes suddenly overflowing with tears, his lubed hand curling around Sherlock’s fingers on his cock. “That’s it. That’s what you need.”  

“Yes, oh, God . . . Oww! Oh . . . yes, that’s . . . ” Sherlock babbles, his cock jerking in John’s grasp, suddenly slick and wet, their fingers stroking him off together.

John rubs his cock between Sherlock’s bruised-hot buttocks, savoring the sounds of Sherlock’s helpless pain, and ejaculates thickly and heavily across Sherlock’s back. At once, both cry out, moaning loudly, freely, as orgasm obliterates them.

“Please . . .” Sherlock whispers after a long, blissful silence. “The ice.”

Shaking his head, John rouses himself, and reaches for the medical ice pack. Sherlock grimaces as the ice touches his skin, but his face soon relaxes into a glowing, contented smile. John smiles too. “All right?” he asks.

“I shan’t be able to sit down for a week,” Sherlock declares.

“You’re welcome,” John grumbles.

Sherlock chuckles. "Just so you know, none of the things I said before were untrue. I am sorry, but it’s best if you simply never think of it that way. I'm not your boyfriend. Besides, such things are childish. A boyfriend is something for a ten-year-old girl."

"You are a ten-year-old girl," John points out. “A bit.”

“Could you make me a cup of tea,” Sherlock yawns. “Really ought to rest for a bit.”

John sighs, but he gets up anyway. “With kombucha or without?” he asks.

“Ordinary tea, thanks.”

“I hate you,” John says tenderly.

“Whatever it takes,” Sherlock says.


End file.
